Larry,
Ironically I am working on a piece for my blog that covers this exact topic. I will give you guys a sneak peak here as I think it will answer some of your questions. Please note that being a city slicker I don't have a grill so I use my kitchen but I have to say that I find my method, using cast iron to be more flavor neutral than a grill, although one can certainly generate more heart with an open fire.
Here is what I have worked on so far. Hope it is not too long:
If you have good ventilation and are prepared for a little heat in the kitchen it is possible to achieve a restaurant quality steak at home You are going to need a thick steak. At least 2 inches if you like it rare and I am going to insist that you buy it fresh from a butcher and preferably dry aged.
A dry aged for 28 days USDA Prime rib eye steak from Lobels.
http://www.lobels.com/ The real problem the home cook faces when cooking steak is achieving the high levels of heat necessary to violently sear the meat, generate a thick, charred crust while maintaining correct internal temperature. Residential broilers simply do not generate enough heat. They cannot compete with the mega BTU output of commercial broilers. The best solution is the cast iron skillet. It excels it providing high temperatures with even heat distribution and it can go from stove top to the oven or broiler for finishing. It also does not lose substantial amounts of heat when food hits it.
To begin with you should leave your steaks out of the fridge for at least an hour or longer depending on the thickness of the cut. The goal is to bring the meat to room temperature, a cold steak will contract when it hits the heat and this wall cause it to toughen. You want a nice relaxed piece of beef. I only apply salt moments before cooking because salt will soak up moisture and could potentially dry out your steak if seasoned too far ahead of time. Personally the steak that I buy are of such high quality that I don't even apply pepper. As for the salt go for Kosher or real sea salt, it make a difference.
It may seem like over kill but I like to heat up my skillet on the stove top for a good 20 minutes before I use it. I like it to cause water to skit on the surface as soon as it hits the pan. I also preheat the broiler, while a home broiler won't give you the initial searing effect it is excellent at crisping up meat that has already been charred and bringing the steak to desired temperature. A note about temperature, in steakhouses I like my meat black and blue, completely charred on the outside, cool on the inside. but this is hard to do using this method, so I generally eat my steaks rare at home. I really don't recommend eating anything beyond medium rare, unless it is a particularly thick rib eye which will still be flavorful at medium. Really you are killing a lot of the flavor by cooking the flesh through. Using the method described here you will be able to achieve a rare steak while getting all of the flavor and texture that a top restaurant will offer.
Once your pan is nice and hot, I use an infra red thermometer to make sure it reads at least 600 degrees, I place the steak in the skillet and press gently just to make sure that full contact is made. You could rub the steaks with peanut oil or clarified butter (clarified butter will burn at a much higher temperature than butter with milk solids in it) I don't recommend olive of other vegestable oils as they tend to have low smoke points. Personally the steak that I buy are fatty enough that I use no oil at all. I usually let the steak sear for 2-3 minutes per side on the stove top, at these temperatures it is enough to put a dark crust on the steak.
I then transfer the skillet directly in to the broiler for about 3 minutes per side. Obviously if you like your steak cooked medium rare or medium you would leave it in a bit longer. As for testing internal temperature I have been doing this long enough that I can poke the beef with my finger and know how it is done using this technique:
http://lifehacker.com/software/grilling/determine-the-doneness-of-a-steak-267250.php You can of course use a meat thermometer, and probably should your first few times out, but I don't like poking my meat if I can help it.
Once the steak is done remove from the pan to stop further cooking and let the steak rest for at least 10 minutes to allow the juices to distribute evenly inside. A steak fresh off the grill will loose almost all of its juice if cut immediately. You can cover the steak with foil but this will cause the steak to continue cooking as the heat radiates back so I generally leave mine uncovered. Here is the finished product:
